Indiana State University BSN Thread for Current Students

I don't think Brenda is at that point yet but it's gone fine for me. You send the information to the contract guy and he takes care of the contract part then you contact the hospital to arrange for a preceptor. I've done clinicals at a few places just to add variety. Right now I'm doing public health at National Institutes of Health and critical care at Johns Hopkins so really you can go anywhere. It also looks good to be able to tell recruiters that you arranged for your own clinical experiences. It shows them you are proactive and motivated.

I don't know that there is any incentive other than that its a benefit to nursing in general. I didn't have a wait list or anything. I did notify Hopkins a few months before my semester started but I'm just anal like that. I don't do anything last minute. It wasn't hard to set up at all once I tracked down the right person. If you do end up at ISU and want to go to Hopkins PM me and I'll pass on her name. Mark (contract guy at ISU) still has the name of a person in the legal department that was no help. I did have to do some legwork to find the right person but I wasn't a big deal. Nothing to fret about anyway.

I'm doing 12 hour shifts simply because it's easier to plan and it limits how many hours of morning childcare I need to arrange. Baltimore is an hour away from me and finding a babysitter willing to come at 5:30am is not an easy task. lol! It's really up to you and your preceptor but you can't do any more than 16 hours per day. You need 500 hours for the LPN-BSN program which is the same as the on campus students in the same program. You have to do the same things they do except your lectures are online rather than in person.

It's taken me a total of 4 semesters of nursing classes. I'm not including general education because I've done a little here, a little there for the past 10 years.
Totally depends on how much credit you transfer in and how many classes you take at a time. The program guide on the site will tell you what all you need.
It's totally different from nursing school clinical. You work one on one with your preceptor (a staff nurse chosen by the facility...Hopkins has a program to train preceptors for their new grad program and generally you will get one of these nurses). I've found that I learn a lot more this way than I did schlepping around with a bunch of other students. If something interesting comes along it's always you that gets to go see or participate because you are by yourself. I love that part. The down side is that your preceptor doesn't have the vested interest in your success that an instructor would so you better hope you get a good one or that you can be proactive but professional if you don't.

Aww you are so sweet. Thank you.

No the study modules and test fees are something you have to pay for yourself so be sure to budget for that. As far as instructors go, it really varies. Only one in particular has been very easy (albeit hard to get ahold of) but she's got a lot going on in the background. Actually no, she wasn't the easiest. I just thought of an incredibly easy one. I'm not posting a list of skate professors until after I get my diploma though. Haha! I've had a couple that I thought at first were the prison warden type but they turned out to not be. My two favorites are Dr. Frank and Dr. Gosse. They teach research and critical care.